


Keeping The Fire Burning (Sequel to Let In The Light)

by Natalya



Series: And This Is Who We Are [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Emotional Baggage, Established Relationship, Love, M/M, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Pre-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-06-23 21:25:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15615363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natalya/pseuds/Natalya
Summary: Sequel to Let In The Light.  Steve and Bucky talk in the safety of darkness together.





	Keeping The Fire Burning (Sequel to Let In The Light)

It wasn’t easy. 

He had known that it wouldn’t be but damned if he had realised just how hard it could and would be. 

He did wonder whether he could have done it alone. 

Whether he would have had the strength to get through it alone, one of the many things that he wondered in the dark of night when he couldn’t sleep and his thoughts were racing on an endless circuit. 

A question that he mulled over in those dark moments of self-flagellation that drove that sense of disquiet beneath his own skin, those moments that filled him with guilt and self-hatred. 

Could he have done it alone? 

Then the answer comes, just as it always does, there in the darkness, a warm hand resting on his chest, right over his heart, a soft, low voice a raspy half-asleep rumble that cuts through it all, “Not alone anymore punk.” 

It was enough, in that moment, enough in the quiet warm darkness surrounding them both, enveloping them in a cocoon against the world. Enough to quiet his mind, enough for his heart to feel as though the barbed wire wound so tight around that it cut through old scar tissue again and again was easing once more, that it was relinquishing its vice-like grip. Enough for him to draw in a slow breath and to feel himself beginning to steady once more, to concentrate on that warm hand on his chest, the way that he can feel that pressure of Bucky’s palm pressed above his heart, pressed there solid,real and grounding. 

There’s a slight hitch to Steve’s breathing that Bucky can feel as much as he can hear, can feel too the too-fast rhythm of a heart that beats under a weight that few people can imagine. But he knows. He knows to the depths of his very soul what it is that Steve feels, suffers, is drowning amongst. It’s that sudden tension, that change in Steve’s breathing that woke him, tuned in to it, tuned in to Steve, something that no matter what else has changed, he thanks whatever gods there are that that is something that hasn’t. 

It has been getting better. Steve has been getting better. 

Slowly. 

With time. But he knows, God does he know how hard it is to strip yourself back, to build yourself once again from the ground up. To feel, to live once again not only as a shadow of who you were, but as the reality of who you are, who you have become. 

“Talk to me.” 

Bucky’s voice still holds that slight rasp of sleep, reminds Steve of so many other nights long, long ago, nights in Brooklyn huddled together, nights beneath canvas in Europe, nights within the last few weeks, mornings waking up with the Wakandan sun streaming through the windows, painting them both in gold, mornings of waking up to the sleepy smile of the man that he loves with everything that he has, to the depth that it feels as though it is written into his very bones, scribed within his DNA. Mornings where he’s greeted with that half-asleep raspy voice, mornings that he can’t quite believe are real, that he can’t feel that he deserves, that are truly his due. 

“You’re thinking again.” It’s far too easy for him to tell with Steve, still such an open book, a heart that’s raw and open, one that was always too open for the way that life had always come for him, the way that he had been through so much, had put up walls that were only a facade for the rest of the world, walls that still somehow let every blow through, another after another, the heart behind battered, bruised and bleeding, the man outside stalwart and silent through it all. He shifts slightly, looks at Steve in the darkness, silhouetted in the faint light just beginning to creep round the edge of the curtains, the darkness still providing enough anonymity that Steve could deny it all if he wanted. 

Not that there would be any point to that. Plausible deniability? There was absolutely no point where the two of them were concerned. It never worked. Not really. Yet Steve had been trying for as long as Bucky had known him, probably would continue to do so. Punk. It was accurate. And every time he would call Steve out on it, call him out on what he always called his ‘bullshit’. And every time, eventually, Steve would crumble, would talk, would let it out, would let someone else shoulder some of the weight of the world that he carried, without complaint, despite the burden being one far too large for anyone to bear. Even with shoulders that broad. Slowly he removes his hand from Steve’s chest, gently cups his face, turning it to make Steve look at him through the darkness, gently runs his thumb across Steve’s cheek. “Talk to me.” 

It’s not exactly a command. He rarely does. Knows what it’s like to have too many absolutes, to have nothing that you can work with, work around, to have nothing except black and white when the world is truly so many shades of grey it’s almost impossible to parse them out. 

There’s a pause. 

A silence that stretches, contracts, hangs between them as he feels Steve begin to tense up, then relax. 

“It’s…” 

Another pause and Bucky shifts enough to press a soft kiss to the corner of Steve’s jaw, just below his ear. “Talk.” 

He can’t help the shiver that runs through him at that word, can’t help the way that low voice, the soft brush of lips against his skin affects him, holds him bound to the present, bound, so willingly to the man beside him. “I couldn’t do it alone.” 

“You don’t have to.” 

The absolute certainty in Bucky’s words should have been some kind of absolution, should have been reassurance, instead there was that reminder that he wasn’t strong enough, was not enough, had never been enough, hadn’t been able to save him, stop what had happened, to keep safe the one person who had mattered to him more than anyone, hadn’t managed to stop the tesseract getting out into the world again. He had never been enough and now? Now there was no change. 

Steve feels his breath shake as he draws it in, curses another sign of weakness, curses the way that it’s a giveaway that he isn’t worth it, that he can’t ever… the thought train breaks down and he grits his teeth for a moment, forcing himself to focus once again on Bucky, to at least respond, to give him that, because it’s impossible not to hear the concern in his voice. Concern that stabs through him, tendrils of poison flowing into his veins. 

Not enough. 

“I should be able to. I don’t have to but...I couldn’t. Never have been enough. Not even for this. Jesus Christ, Buck...you have...you’ve always been the strong one. Always been there, always… always. And this? I can’t even do this. I ain’t strong enough Buck, I’m not…” 

“Stop.” Steve’s words feel as though they are flaying him open, feel like a punch to the gut, like a sickening flood of cold, dank water flowing over him, that Steve could feel that much guilt and self-loathing. “That ain’t how it is Stevie. That ain’t how it is at all.” 

Those words, so definite, so full of concrete certainty. That simple, definitive knowledge that Bucky means every single word that he utters is enough. Enough to make Steve draw in a slow breath, to force his breathing to slow, to calm, to find some kind of rhythm, something, anything to anchor him to the moment, to Bucky, to those words of absolution, of reclamation there in the darkness of their room. “It’s true though Buck, I know you don’t want it to be, I don’t want it to be, but…” There’s no need to finish his sentence, he feels before he hears the sharp breath that Bucky draws in. 

“No.” It’s almost harsh. Almost. “No. You think I’ve been the strong one. You think that because you got it through your stubborn thick head that somehow, God only knows when, and you haven’t let up on that belief since then.” He pauses, gives himself a moment to choose his words, to work out how he needs to say it that it will sink in with Steve, the things that he already knows, the truths that have been a part of him, a part of them since the beginning. Things that are so much easier to speak of in the darkness, in the half-light, in the in-between times of dawn and dusk. 

Two more breaths. 

Three. 

Time measured in the beats of two hearts, the rise and fall of chests, the soft changes in the light creeping through from the world outside, a world that may as well not exist for either of them, not there, not then. Not when there is more to be dealt with, more to be done, more at stake within that room, between the two of them. 

“It’s not true Steve. That I did it alone. This. Here. Nobody can do it alone, nobody. You know the old saying, it takes a village? It really does.” He lightly runs his tongue across his lips, suddenly dry as he thinks back to those early days, when he was going through just what Steve is right now, in the days where there were more shadows than light, until the world was filled with colour again and he felt as though there was light at the end of the tunnel for him. “I didn’t do it alone. I don’t know that anybody could. I had time. Shuri. T’Challa. Ramona. The children. Animals. It was hard. There were days, Stevie, so many days when I didn’t think that I could. When I thought I was going to… when I thought that I was drowning. But I didn't, because I had other people there.” 

Silence hangs between them for a few long, oh so long moments as Steve digests his words, really lets them sink in, forces himself to really hear what Bucky is saying to him. And it isn’t easy. Because if Bucky can admit that, it means that he has to admit it to himself, has to realise that he needs help, that he needs to let other people in, that it’s not something that he can just fight against as he does with the rest of the world, and that’s enough to have his stomach tying in a knot, his chest feeling as though there’s a lead weight pressing down on it. He knows that Bucky must have seen some of it in his face, something there, some giveaway because then there’s Bucky’s hand on his chest with a soft pressure that somehow eases the weight and makes him begin to relax. 

One heartbeat. 

Two. 

Three. 

“You… I want to do it. I need to do it too.” Steve hears his own voice crack over the last words but forges on, cannot stop because if he does he might not ever finish. “I want to do this. To get help. To get through it.” 

“Then you know that I’m here.” Bucky’s voice is calm, soothing, his tone low, and he continues, “I’m here through it all. With you.” 

Those words. 

Those words in that beloved voice. 

It was enough to undo him there and then. 

But enough to hold him together at the same time. 

Enough. 

A word that for some meant the bare minimum, meant scraping, and striving, and only just grasping by scraped and bloodied fingertips. 

But to him, to him it’s a blessing. Something to hold on to, Something to take with both hands and to cherish. 

Bucky feels the infinitesimal way that Steve’s muscles relax, the way that his breathing changes slightly, calms, feels the change in the air around them. And it’s a relief. A blessed relief that his words have got through, that Steve knows that they will do this together. 

In the darkness their lips meet in a kiss, soft, chaste, slightly chapped skin rough one against another, the scratch of stubble something that’s simply a reminder that this is solid, that it’s real. The kiss is love, absolution. 

A promise.


End file.
